There’s a wood stack piled up beneath a tin roof.
I try peering through the window but it’s too steamed up to see inside and I’m left asking myself – what sort of person lives out here, all alone?
Out of nowhere, a great hulk of a thing rushes at us, barking.
‘Kafi!’ he says firmly, calling the Bernese mountain dog to heel. She whines at his feet, baring teeth, and I take a step back.
‘She’s harmless,’ he says. ‘Come here, girl!’ He whistles with his fingers and the black-and-brown dog, at least half the size of me, loops around his legs and disappears inside. Two glassy eyes watch us closely from the gloom of the hallway.
Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of silver. The grille of a four-by-four peeking out from under a protective sheet. Another way off this mountain? I let out a small sigh of relief as we follow him inside.
He stamps the snow from his boots and shrugs off his jacket, hanging it up on a peg.
Now, under the light, I can finally get a better look at him. He’s wiry but strong, his features dominated by a bent-out-of-shape nose and a jutting jawline. He’s tanned, his skin leathery and lined by the extreme climate, but he carries a quiet confidence. The air of a survivor.
We limp into the warmth and he leads us into a kitchen. It smells of wood chip and food that’s been bubbling on the hob for hours. It’s the first warmth in what feels like forever and never have I felt so grateful.
He disappears into a back room with the rabbits and the rifle. There’s the sound of a key turning in a lock – the gun cabinet, I assume. He reappears seconds later with his beanie hat in one hand, ruffling his hair with the other.
Rugged-looking, he’s more handsome than I first thought. A bramble of sandy hair, a scruff of a beard. He’s wearing a polo neck under a checked shirt, stonewashed jeans and slipper boots. At a guess I’d say early fifties, but the outdoor life has kept him looking young and fit.
He helps me lift Florence into the room next door where there’s an open fire and a stag head above the mantel. I help her out of her snowsuit and he hands me some jogging bottoms and a jumper which drown her tiny frame. I hear a small gasp when I remove her woolly hat. He looks away from her scarred scalp, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
‘What did they do to her?’ he says quietly, still unable to meet my gaze.
‘Shall we talk in there?’ I signal to the kitchen. He nods and we return to the other room, leaving Florence to warm up and rest.
Immediately I notice the table by the stove where there’s an old-fashioned telephone plugged into the wall. My eyes light up.
‘Can I use it?’ I say urgently.
He hesitates, frowning. ‘I don’t want any trouble.’
‘If I don’t call the police now, they’ll get away with it. People are trapped up there, they need our help.’
I think about Ariel. Did she survive? It looked like she’d managed to stop the cable car, but what if they found a way to get it working again?
He nods slowly, sadness entering his features. ‘They stole my life and my livelihood.’
‘We can get it back.’ I look at him reassuringly. I shouldn’t be making promises but I need him to work with me.
His eyes mist up and then he clears his throat and straightens.
‘That phone doesn’t work, not since they cut the lines. And the electricity runs on a generator.’ He fishes inside his jeans pocket. ‘Use this.’ He hands me a mobile.
One call to Grace and a rescue operation is underway. She’s now on the phone to Interpol, Scotland Yard, the British Embassy in Bern and anyone else she can wake up. Every few minutes, Grace sends a fresh update or an Are you OK? You sure you’re safe? The phone vibrates again: I’m booking a flight to GENEVA. Five minutes later: I’m on the next flight out of London.
My body sighs, I roll my shoulders to ease out the remaining tension, sinking back against the worktop. Help is on the way. I can relax, for a moment anyway. I need to catch my breath.
He studies me quietly from his chair by the stove.
‘What are your names?’ he says.
I let out a small laugh. ‘We haven’t even got round to introducing ourselves, have we? I’m Hollie and that’s Florence in there. You?’
The dog whines and it’s his turn to crack a smile.
‘She’s jealous. She’s used to having my undivided attention, eh, girl?’ He rubs behind her ears and she flops over onto her side, inviting cuddles. ‘I’m Hans.’
I smile. He reminds me a little of Mikkel, a more rugged version, and all of a sudden I’m overwhelmed with longing for my husband.
His mobile vibrates. It’s Grace: Air Rescue team on the way. Sit tight.
‘Want some food?’ He looks at me with concern.
My stomach growls before I can answer. I can’t remember the last time I ate. My belly feels hollow and sore and I need to keep my energy up. I smile gratefully as he hands me a bowl of chunky winter vegetable soup and I almost inhale the first spoonful.
‘You live all alone out here?’ I say between mouthfuls. I notice the shelves crammed with tins and jars, candles and matches and bottles of medicine, enough to last a year.
He nods. ‘Since they shut the village down.’
‘What happened?’
‘The pharma bought everyone out of their homes and it was too good an offer for most to refuse. Turning it down would have been insanity, I understand that. Especially as many here were living off seasonal work, their income precarious, me included. I ran a paragliding centre, but—’ he tails off, sighing heavily. He gets up and runs himself a glass of water. ‘I’ve lived here my entire life.’ His gaze lifts and circles the room. ‘I was born here, in these very walls. I couldn’t leave, even when they increased the offer – more cash than I could ever dream of.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I was stubborn, I didn’t stop to think that everything would end if the villagers left; I couldn’t run my business without them. Those lawyers must have laughed at me.’ He blows air through his nose. ‘I’m glad I didn’t take the money though, out of principle. I’m doing OK, surviving off the land, I go hunting and I have some savings left. My kids keep an eye out for me.’
‘And the pharma doesn’t know you’re here?’
‘I disappeared for a few months to make them think I’d given up. Then I came back. Everything was how I left it; nobody ever comes to check. I haven’t seen a soul in over a year. And it helps that my cabin is out of their way. Nobody will find you here.’ He sits down heavily, his shoulders sagging. ‘Saying no to the money was the final straw for my marriage though: the wife’d had enough. She left with everyone else.’
My eyes slide to the family photo held with a magnet to the fridge door.
‘My boys,’ he says with a nod. ‘Christof and Ludwig, although not really boys any more. Both work in finance, they live in Geneva with their families.’
The photo is of them hunting. His sons, crouched in the long grass, a stag at their feet and the mountains rising up behind.
‘Occasionally they might come up here to see their papa, but they don’t approve of my decision to stay here.’ He shrugs. ‘The pharma did more than shut down this village, they tore families apart.’
I swallow in the silence.
‘Did you have any idea why they wanted to buy you out?’
‘I knew it couldn’t be for anything good or legal if they needed the whole area to be cleared, that level of restricted access.’ His eyes pinch. ‘But they convinced the public it was to do with nature conservation. They said they were working with the government and UNESCO to repair damage caused by over-tourism, but I knew they were lying.’
I think about the steel wall blocking off the valley and I wonder if FreezeLAB paid off the government as well. With that kind of money, it wouldn’t surprise me.
‘My first thought was drug testing,’ Hans continues. ‘After all, that’s what the place was originally built for, up until the end of the Second World War.’ He shudders. ‘The thought of what went on up there and what’s left behind.’
‘Left behind?’
‘You know. Spirits.’
I frown.
‘The undead.’
‘I don’t believe in that stuff.’
‘You should,’ he says darkly.
The way he’s looking at me now, it’s unnerving.
‘When people do bad things,’ he goes on, ‘it doesn’t go anywhere. It hangs around, you can feel it, like electricity.’
A strange silence takes a seat next to us, until Hans lifts onto his feet and holds out a hand for my bowl.
‘More?’
‘That was great, thank you.’
‘Now what?’ he says.
‘I guess we wait.’
Another silence comes between us; it’s making me feel on edge, so I try to keep him talking about life on the mountain.
‘How do you get your supplies?’
‘I stock up in autumn. I’ve got everything I need stored in the basement. And I go out hunting. There is a track down the mountain that thaws in spring.’ He shrugs. ‘I like being alone.’
‘And that’s why you have the car, for when the snow melts?’
Hans moves his gaze to the window, suddenly distracted.
‘I guess it’s too dangerous to drive now . . .’ I tail off, watching him closely. ‘Something wrong?’
He turns to the side, like a dog tuning in to a sound.
My stomach hollows. ‘What is it?’
‘Shh.’ Hans warns me with his eyes. Then he quickly crosses the room and turns off the kitchen light.
‘What? What the fuck is going on?’
‘I heard something,’ he whispers into the dark room.
We stand stock-still, holding our breath, tuning in to every creak, every gust of wind. Listening to the rustle of the pines, straining to identify – is something else out there?
Our tracks will have been hidden by fresh snow. But someone could have made it down the mountain. Or come up to search for us. We’re sitting ducks until help arrives. Hans returns to me, his features relaxing.
‘It’s OK. I think it was the wind.’
I look at him warily.
‘It’s unlikely they’ve found us, not unless someone has been following you.’
The feeling I had in the woods, of being watched, it makes my skin prickle.
‘But let’s get you upstairs, just in case.’ He moves towards the next room. ‘You can hide in the attic until the rescue team come. It’s insulated, it’s warm up there.’
He helps me lift Florence and we carry her up the stairs. At the crest of the landing there’s a rope tucked behind a painting. Hans gives it a tug and a hatch directly above drops open. He reaches, grabbing hold of the folding ladder. The metal hinges squeak as he pulls it down to meet the floor.
Gazing up into the black hole, I hear Florence swallow and she looks at me nervously.
It’s OK, I mouth to her.
Hans takes off along the hall, disappearing into one of the rooms.
In a low voice, I say: ‘He’s a bit of a loner but this guy seems genuine.’
Hans returns a minute later with a thick blanket. He eyes us suspiciously.
‘She going to be all right?’ he says to me.
‘Yeah. She’s been drugged with Valium and it’s affected her memory; she can’t remember much but when that starts to wear off, she should be fine.’
He nods. ‘I’ll help you up there.’